Song For the Dead
by SergeantPixie
Summary: Rebekah observes Elena's private ritual at her family's grave. Post 4x14.


**AN: Hello, this was written before the airing of 4x15. Review if you like. Song used is Under the Water by the Pretty Reckless, I recommend you listen to it; it's beautiful.**

_"Lay my head, under the water, lay my head, under the sea," _Elena sings weakly. Her voice breaks, but she clears it and continues. _"Excuse me sir, am I your daughter?" _Her voice cuts through the cold air like a dagger, gaining power. Rebekah is amazed at the haunting quality. The Original stays a safe distance away from the baby vamp, tucked in between two trees, watching. Elena is kneeling in front of her family plot, wearing the same black dress she always wears when she says goodbye. When she buries them. She's long since ordered her friends away. Even Damon left, she's alone. But Rebekah can't bring herself to leave. She's, entranced. What a strange thing to do, sing to the dead.

_ "Won't you take me back, take me back, and see? There's not time, for being younger." _her voice breaks on the last word as she trails her fingers over her baby brother's freshly dug grave. Rebekah can't place the song, it's something strange and dark and nothing like the cute bubblegum pop that most mortals preferred. It makes her insides ache, but she likes it. _"And all my friends, are enemies. And if I cry unto my mother, no, she wasn't there, she wasn't there for me." _The words are bitter and full of poignant sadness. It is the song of a girl who has no family left. Rebekah has her brothers. Elena has no one.

_ "Don't let the water drag you down, don't let the water drag you down." _Elena's voice is delicate, like it could break at any second, but the words fill the empty air and Rebekah soaks them into her skin. It's a truly strange thing to do, to sing a song to the dead, a final lullaby. A lullaby full of bitterness, and pain, full of warnings. It's the song of an ending.

"_Broken lines, across my mirror, show my face, all red and bruised." _Elena runs her hands over the planes of her dress. How many more times would she wear it? How many others would she bury? Would she bury them all? Caroline, Matt, Bonnie, Damon, Tyler, Stefan? Would she stand alone and sing songs to their graves, because for some reason, it was never her. She didn't get to die. Only to bury the dead. That was her curse. To bury loved ones and sing them one last song.

_ "And though I screamed and screamed, well no one came running. No I wasn't saved, I wasn't saved from me." _The last line is sung so bitterly that it pierces Rebekah's dead heart. Of course that is what she believes. If enough people die around you, you start to believe it's your doing. Rebekah grips the tree next to her, she can't go to her. Elena waited until everyone was gone to sing, and Rebekah can respect that. She'll simply have to listen, and watch. _"Don't let the water drag you down, don't let the water drag you down," _Elena rasps. Her voice is weeping out the words, but her cheeks are dry. She doesn't have the power to cry, not anymore. She's cried so much, for so many of the dead. Why did they all die?

_ "Don't let me drown, don't let me drown in the waves, oh. I could be found, I could be the one who is saved, saved, saved, saved," _the delicate echo of the last word brings tears to Rebekah's eyes. What must it be like, to bury people like it was going out of style? Body after body, and their hearts are carved with her name. Elena doesn't have much left to lose. Does this make her pathetic or dangerous? Perhaps both. Rebekah knows it's both, how else was Katerina Petrova made to be the monster she is? Take away family, and there is not much left. Katerina lost them all at once, Elena lost them slowly, like a long drawn out disease. Rebekah can't decide which is more painful.

_ "Lay my head, under the water. Lord I pray, for calmer seas, and when I wake from this dreams," _Elena's voice is dangerously soft. The wind covers it, but Rebekah doesn't have to strain to hear it. Her body is drenched in the melody. She cannot think of a moment in which she has felt closer to another person, living or dead. She can hear Elena's story woven into the lyrics, woven into her soul. it weighs her down, and makes her loathe every moment she wasted tormenting this girl. What's a knife in the back compared to being the soul survivor of a family massacre? The urge to wrap Elena in her embrace and hold her until the darkness clears is overwhelming. But Rebekah simply grips the tree harder, bark digging into her skin as the wood splinters against her iron grip.

_ "With chains all around me, no, I've never been, I've never been free. No, I've never been, I've never been free." _The words that exit Elena's mouth are so bitter and hateful, and yet, so very true. Elena Gilbert has never been free. She is trapped by circumstance, chained by the face she wears, and the title she bears. The Petrova Doppleganger. She is not meant to live, not truly. The Fates had ruined her before she even existed. _"No, I've never been, I've never been free."_


End file.
